What’s New in InDesign CC 2018

A bevy of feature improvements bring a sigh of relief to long-time InDesign users

Adobe has just released a major new version of InDesign—InDesign CC 2018. Following the precedent of CC 2017, Adobe released it in connection with its big Creative Cloud event, Adobe MAX 2017, held this year in Las Vegas.

Unlike InDesign CC 2017, which emphasized a new user interface more than new features, this release has major new features, some of which users have wanted for a long time. They include endnotes, paragraph borders, the ability to store an object’s size and position in an object style, and the ability to store shared text assets in CC Libraries. In addition, there are helpful new ways to filter fonts in the Font menu, an integration of the German Duden dictionary, improvements in export of HTML and PDF accessibility, and a number of other, smaller features.

As always, this major version upgrade brings a new file format. This means that if someone using InDesign CC 2018 creates a new file, and you open it using an earlier version of InDesign CC, the Creative Cloud must convert the file backward to your older version (or you can use the old “save as IDML” process). I’ll describe the process at the end of this article.

But first, heeeeeeere’s the new features…!

Endnotes (finally!)

InDesign users have been able to add and manage footnotes in documents since version CS2. But until now, InDesign users have had to rely on third-party products or scripts to add endnotes at the end of a story or document. It has been more than 18 years since InDesign 1.0 was released, so to say we’ve been waiting a long time for endnotes would be quite an understatement. But the wait is finally over. You can use InDesign CC 2018 to create endnotes for either a story or document, and the endnote frames can be placed in various locations.

Creating an endnote

You can now create an endnote similarly to creating a footnote: Place your insertion point where you want the endnote text reference to appear. Then choose Type > Insert Endnote (or right-click and choose Insert Endnote).

By default, a new page is added at the end of the document, and an endnote frame is created where you can enter the endnote text. InDesign places your insertion point between two colored markers, where you can enter text for the endnote. Subsequent endnotes in the same frame will be placed within new pairs of markers.

The reason that consecutive endnotes are placed between markers is that, unlike footnotes, endnotes often include text that is not part of an endnote—for example, headings or chapter numbers. You should place that text outside of the markers. (Markers are not printable, and just visually indicate the area of an endnote.)

Clicking in the endnote and choosing Type > Go to Endnote Reference (or right-clicking and choosing Go to Endnote Reference from the context menu) takes you back to the referenced text.

By default, creating an endnote in another story places the endnote in the same document endnote frame. However, you can also choose to restart the numbering for each story in the same frame using a setting in the Endnote Options dialog box. Or you can set the endnotes to follow each story.

Endnote frames

The endnote frame is a special kind of text frame. When the frame is selected, a special adornment on the bottom left indicates an endnote frame (Figure 1). To see it, you must select the frame with the Selection tool and turn on Show Frame Edges.

Figure 1: Text in an endnote frame is placed between marker pairs. Text that is not an endnote—for example, a chapter number—can be placed outside of the marker pairs. The new adornment/icon in the lower-left corner of the frame indicates this is a special frame that contains endnotes.

By default, an endnote frame is created based on the scope of the document. This scope means that it includes all the endnotes in the document, and it is created on a new page at the end of the document. However, in Positioning Options (in the Endnote Options dialog box), you can set the scope to Story. In that case, a new endnote page will be created at the end of each story, and it will include endnotes only from that story. If you choose Story as the scope, you can alternatively choose Load the Place Cursor and place the endnote frame wherever you like.

Setting endnote options

TIP: Clicking the endnote text frame adornment also takes you to the Endnote Options dialog box.

Figure 2: The Endnote Options dialog box is where you specify the layout, numbering, and formatting for endnotes.

Many of the Endnote options are the same or similar to those for setting footnotes. The numbering options are similar except that endnote numbering can be based on a story. The formatting options for the endnote reference number are similar to a footnote’s “Reference Number in Text” options. Prefixes and suffixes can be applied to a reference, to the endnote text, or both. Choices for Position, Character Style, Paragraph Style, and Separator are also similar.

Editing endnotes

Unlike footnotes, however, you can copy and paste endnotes and endnote frames. You can also move endnotes within documents and even insert endnote references in a table. (Sorry, no footnotes in tables yet.)

And, of course, the numbering of each endnote frame will auto-adjust based on the ordering of the endnote references in the text.

Document vs. Story-based Endnotes

Put all your endnotes at the end of the story, and now changed your mind? No problem! You can change the scope for endnotes between Document and Story.

For example, if you change the scope from Document to Story, InDesign creates a new endnote frame for each story. The previous document endnote frame and its page will be deleted. However, note that numbering will not be continuous when it is based on a story; each story has its own numbering and numbering restarts in each frame.

Unfortunately, you cannot place endnotes at the end of a book document, or in a separate document in a publication made of multiple documents and compiled using the book panel. This is a serious limitation, as so many book designs require notes in the backmatter.

Importing Word Endnotes

You can import Microsoft Word endnotes. You select this option in the Word Import Options dialog box (select Show Import Options in the Place dialog box). All the endnotes are imported and added to a new document endnote frame. When you import multiple Word documents at the same time, all the endnotes of the documents are imported into a single frame.

Paragraph Borders and Shading

Back in InDesign CC 2015, one of the most requested new features arrived: the ability to add shading behind a paragraph. But it was missing its companion feature—adding a border around the outside of the same paragraph.

That deficiency has now been remedied with enhancements to paragraph shading and the addition of a paragraph border feature in CC 2018.

Corners on Paragraph Shading

The original Paragraph Shading feature gave you the ability to put shading behind the text in the paragraph, while setting its color, tint, and offset values on each side (how far it should sit from the edge of the paragraph). You can also choose to clip shading to the frame and prevent printing or exporting.

New in InDesign CC 2018, Paragraph Shading also includes the ability to set Corner Size and Shape independently on all sides (Figure 3). Yes, that includes rounded corner shading!

Figure 3: Paragraph Shading has been enhanced to include setting corner size and shape independently on each side. This example also uses the Paragraph Border feature on the same paragraph, shown on the left side of the figure.

Paragraph Borders Options

The new Paragraph Borders feature lets you create borders on all sides of a paragraph and apply them to one or more paragraphs. The borders can either be used by themselves or combined with Paragraph Shading in the same paragraph (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The new Paragraph Borders feature can create borders independently on each side of a paragraph. This example shows the border settings for the paragraph illustrated in Figure 3.

To add a border, choose Border in the Paragraph or Control panel, or Paragraph Border in the Paragraph Style Options dialog box.

TIP:As with many of the Control panel icons, Option/Alt-clicking the Paragraph Border icon opens the Paragraph Border options dialog box.

The top section of Paragraph Border controls is Stroke settings. You can independently create borders on each side of the paragraph using the four controls for Top, Bottom, Left, and Right. Setting the stroke weight to zero or changing its color to None turns off a border.

However, each of the four border segments must share other stroke attributes. Here you can set Stroke Type, Color, Gap Color, Tint, Overprint, and Cap and Join attributes. They cannot be set independently.

As with Paragraph Shading controls, the paragraph borders can have independent Corner Size and Shape, and the controls look the same.

Paragraph Borders also set controls for positioning similar to Paragraph Shading controls. These include offsets on each side, Top Edge, Bottom Edge, and Width (Column or Text).

There is one more option at the bottom that determines what happens when a paragraph border breaks across frames or columns. The default is to clip the border; if the option is selected, the border can be closed at the top or bottom of a column or frame.

Limitations

These new paragraph-formatting controls are very welcome and pretty great. But there are features that should probably be added to future versions of paragraph borders. It’s difficult to set up both paragraph shading and borders on the same paragraph: many of the settings (offset, corner settings, etc.) will be the same in the two dialog boxes, but there is no way to link the settings to make it easier to edit them.

A second difficulty is that if you want a border to seamlessly continue across more than one paragraph, it’s complicated to set up and may require multiple paragraph styles if used repetitively. Adobe really ought to make “borders across multiple paragraphs” as easy as a checkbox.

Size and Position Options in Object Styles

There are times when you want to ensure that multiple objects share the same size and position on a page. Previously, if you needed to make any sizing or positions changes to the objects, those edits had to be made for each instance of the object separately. But InDesign CC 2018 adds the new Size and Position Options choice in the Object Styles dialog box, so you can make and modify certain page elements much more efficiently. Note that the new options support not only independent objects like text or unassigned frames; they can also be applied to anchored objects, tables, and image frames.

Setting Size and Position Options

For each object, you can set three size options: Width Only, Height Only and Height and Width. There are also three options for position—X Only, Y Only, and X and Y. And of course InDesign offers you a reference icon to choose from which part of the object the position is measured. Position can be aligned relative to either Page Edge or Page Margin (Figure 5).

Figure 5: A new Object Style option lets you store and reuse an object’s size and position.

In the example shown in Figure 5, I created two objects styles for a sidebar—one for left pages, one for right. (Unfortunately, the new feature doesn’t yet support a Relative to Spine command, which would allow you to use just one style.) The Width was set to adjust to the width of the column, but the Height might vary. The frame was positioned using the upper left reference point. Both the X and Y offsets were defined relative to the Page Edge.

Eyedropper option

Another way to work with reusing object dimensions and position is with the Eyedropper tool. This tool now has a new Transform Options choice, with options for Dimension and Position. With those options turned on, the dimensions and position are copied when you click on any object, and can then be applied to another object.

Adding and Sharing Text Assets with CC Libraries

For over two years, InDesign users have been able to store objects, color swatches, and paragraph and character styles in CC Libraries. (To learn more about CC Libraries, read InDesign Magazine #83, “Creative Cloud Libraries.”) These objects can be shared between InDesign documents and also used in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

What has been missing is the ability to repurpose text assets (from a sentence to an entire story). Beginning in InDesign CC 2018, you can drag text or a text frame into a CC Library. This text can be used in either another InDesign CC 2018 file, or in an Adobe Illustrator CC 2018 document. As with other CC library assets, you can use them yourself, or you can share them with other users. Text assets retain their paragraph and character styles and other attributes, such as color, that are applied to them.

Adding a Text Asset to a CC Library

You can select any amount of text in a story with the Type tool, and click the Add Content (+) menu at the bottom of the CC Libraries panel. Select the Text checkbox, and click Add to add the text to the new Text category in the current CC library (Figure 6). You’re also given the opportunity to add paragraph and/or character styles or save the text as a graphic.

Figure 6: Text assets can now be stored in a CC library for reuse either in Adobe InDesign CC 2018 or Illustrator CC 2018.

Alternatively, you can select the text frame with the Selection tool to add all the text in the frame in the same way. If you select a text frame, you can drag and drop it over a CC library to add the text.

Using a Library Text Asset in InDesign CC 2018

You can repurpose a saved CC library text asset in an InDesign CC 2018 document in one of four ways:

In InDesign CC 2018, you can drag the text asset from the CC Library (or right-click the asset and choose Place Linked). This copies all the formatting from the original and also creates a link from the text frame to the text asset in the library. You’ll see a cloud icon on the text frame just as you would for a library linked graphic (see Figure 7C below). Use this method when you want assets to be kept updated to the library copy of the text.

TIP: Library linked text shows a Text icon in the Links panel, much like a locally linked text or spreadsheet file. The Link Info shows the path to the CC Library.

You can Alt/Option-drag the text asset from the CC Library panel (or right-click the asset and choose Place Copy). This copies the formatted text from the library but doesn’t link it. If the library text changes, the copy won’t be updated.

You can also Shift-drag the text asset from the CC Library to import the text without saving any previous formatting (or right-click the asset and choose Place Without Styles). You could use this when you want this text to match the styling of text already in your document.

If your insertion point is already in a text frame, right-click and choose Place Inline to insert the text asset. The incoming text also forgets its styling and matches the existing text frame formatting.

Note that there is no option to link to text in a CC library without including formatting information. For example, you might want to put text such as a phone number in a CC Library and then link to it from several documents, formatting it differently in each file. That isn’t easy to do currently.

Exchanging text with Adobe lllustrator CC 2018

If you’ve ever tried to exchange formatted text between InDesign and Illustrator, you’ll be relieved to hear it is finally possible with CC Library text. (Of course you also need to be using the CC 2018 versions of both InDesign and Illustrator.) When text is exchanged, the applications maintain the styling to the highest degree possible. Any text property which exists in both applications will be maintained.

For example, if you created some text in InDesign which was formatted with Adobe Garamond Pro, 12-point size, with 14-point leading, a first line indent, the color blue, and Keep Options, Illustrator would convert all the values to matching values in Illustrator. But the Keep Options would be dropped, since that feature doesn’t exist in Illustrator.

To place the formatted text in Illustrator CC 2018, drag without a modifier key from the Library panel. Or, drag with the Shift key to place unformatted text. Unfortunately, at this time, Illustrator doesn’t support linking text to a CC library.

TIP: You can tell which application created the text if you view the CC library in List view. An AI or ID icon on a text asset indicates the originating application.

Editing a text asset in CC Libraries

You can edit a text asset in a CC library. To do so, either double-click the asset or right-click and choose Edit. A temporary file opens in the text’s original application. Make changes to the text and/or formatting, and save the file. InDesign-created text assets must be edited in InDesign. Illustrator-created text assets must be edited in Illustrator (Figure 7B).

If an InDesign file with a library-linked text asset is open when the asset is updated, the InDesign file is updated immediately. If it is closed, it will be updated when the InDesign file is opened (Figure 7C).

Figure 7: Formatted Adobe Illustrator CC 2018 text was added to a CC library (A). The text asset was Place Linked into InDesign CC 2018, creating a link to the library. Later, the library asset was edited in Illustrator (B). The InDesign copy of the library asset is automatically updated. The cloud icon on the text frame indicates a library linked asset (C).

Font Classification and Font Similarity Filters

InDesign has added new font filtering features in the Character and Control panel Font menus in InDesign CC. Previously, we have been able to filter by favorites and by Typekit fonts. InDesign CC 2018 adds two more filtering features—Font Classification and Font Similarity (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Font Classification categories can be filtered in the Font menu (top left). A Font Similarity filter can also be displayed. A new black status strip indicates which filters are turned on.

Font Classification

You can filter fonts in InDesign’s font menus using a Type Classification filter. Over the years, typographers have devised various systems to classify fonts. Adobe picked eight of the most common categories for filtering fonts in InDesign CC, as well as Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC.

Serif

Slab Serif

Sans Serif

Script

Blackletter

Monospace

Handwriting

Decorative

Font Similarity

When the Font Similarity filter is turned on, InDesign will search for and display fonts that are visually similar to the currently displayed font. Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC have matching Similarity filters, and the results are usually very close to those you’ll see in InDesign.

Applied Filters Notification

It’s common for users to forget that font filtering is turned on and to think some of their fonts have disappeared. So another welcome addition is a black status strip that appears at the top of the font list whenever filtering is applied. This includes filtering for Typekit fonts, favorite fonts, font similarity, or font classification. You can see this black strip in Figure 8.

Duden Hyphenation and Spell Checking for German

For InDesign users who publish in the German language, a most welcome new feature in the upcoming InDesign CC 2018 will be native InDesign support for the Duden dictionary. Duden is a well-respected dictionary authority in Germany (similar to Webster’s in the U.S.) that allows for more accurate hyphenation and spell-checking of German words.

Additionally, InDesign will include a new, updated German language variant in the Language drop-down menu: “German: Austria 2006 Reform.” The new dictionary and Duden integration will also be supported in InCopy and InDesign Server, to smooth German language workflows that incorporate editorial rounds and automation.

InDesign has supported the Proximity and Hunspell dictionaries for German, just as for the other language dictionaries, but knowledgeable users of German consider them inferior. Often, they require the InDesign user or their editor to manually check every auto-hyphenated German word, many of which need correcting, before a project can be published. Using the new Duden options, InDesign’s auto-hyphenation and spell-checking will be much more accurate.

You can read the official Adobe announcement about the Duden dictionary support here. Also, Tim Gouder, author of the German language InDesign-Blog.de, has posted video showing the new Duden features.

If you don’t speak German, here’s how you’ll soon be able to use the Duden dictionary for the German language:

All: All hyphenations that are technically “correct.” For example, both Auto-bahn and Au-tobahn are correct.

All but unaesthetic: All possible hyphens (but no unaesthetic hyphens).

Aesthetic: Only hyphens that have been explicitly marked as aesthetic hyphens (Auto-bahn but not Au-tobahn)

Preferred aesthetic: Uses aesthetic hyphenation if possible, but falls back to normal hyphens for words longer than 6 characters and without aesthetic hyphens.

Spell Checking

There are four spell-checking styles for the Duden dictionary, and based on the style you select, one or both the variants are accepted. Duden is selected by default. You can select other options from Preferences > Dictionary > Spelling. The following options are available:

Duden: Only the correct variation recommended by Duden is accepted. Other variants are marked as errors.

Conservative: Accept only old spelling variants like Delphin but not Delfin. Similarly, Graphik is accepted but not Grafik (ph instead of f).

Tolerant: Accept any valid spelling. For example, both Graphik and Grafik are correct. Similarly, both Delphin and Delfin are correct.

Press agencies: Same as Duden recommendations but with a different rule set agreed by multiple press agencies and publishing houses.

We’re sure that our colleagues who work with German text in InDesign will be more than pleased by this addition to InDesign CC 2018.

Export HTML Improvements

If you’ve ever tried to export HTML from InDesign, you’ve probably noticed that it loves to add class and id tags to almost every paragraph and object—it can be very overwhelming and a pain to clean up. Fortunately, a new item in the Advanced panel of the HTML Export dialog box—labeled Don’t Include Classes in HTML—allows you to exclude all these extraneous materials. It removes the class and id attributes present in the tag, and even many redundant div tags present in the HTML, to create clean-looking HTML and remove unnecessary grouping of content.

In addition, in the Edit All Export Tags dialog box (which you can find in the Paragraph Styles panel menu), you can now specify whether to include classes in exported HTML for individual tags (Figure 10).

Figure 10: You can now control which classes are included in HTML when exporting.

Smaller Enhancements

There are also some minor (but welcome) new features and fixes.

Ability to Add Gradients to a Swatch Group

Several versions ago, when InDesign added the ability to group swatches in the Swatches panel, gradient swatches were excluded. Now, in CC 2018, you can add gradient swatches to a group, or create a gradient swatch directly within a group.

PDF Accessibility Enhancements

PDF accessibility has been much improved in InDesign CC 2018 with several enhancements. Professionals who need these accessibility features will find this InDesign version is a major advance. The enhancements include:

Alt Text: In earlier versions of InDesign, you could not tag InDesign native objects and graphics as figures in an exported PDF. Now you can do that using Object > Object Export Options, and Adobe Acrobat and screen readers can read the alt text (Figure 11).

Figure 11: With new PDF accessibility features, you can use the Object Export Options dialog box to tag an InDesign native object (A). The results can be viewed in Adobe Acrobat and recognized by screen readers (B).

Master Page Tagging is now handled properly: page objects on a master page now correctly show an artifact tag in Acrobat. When a master page object is overridden, it will now show the tags of such an object.

Index Tagging: Now indexes are properly mapped to index only (rather than simply mappedto paragraph).

Caption Tagging: A Live Caption now gets a caption tag as a child of a figure tag.

TOC: TOC tagging structure is now implemented. It is mandatory for a TOC with hyperlinks to have tags.

Start Screen and Recent Files Changes

The Recent Files workspace previously introduced has been removed. Small improvements in organization have been made in the Start Screen.

New Document Dialog Box for MENA Versions: Beginning with InDesign CC 2018, MENA (Middle Eastern and North Africa) versions can choose from a variety of templates previously only for Roman languages.

Ability to Remove Forced Line Breaks in TOC

There is a new option to Remove Forced Line Break at the bottom of the Table of Contents dialog box (Layout > Table of Contents). This automates one of the most common clean-up actions users take when building tables of contents.

Application Name and Version in Application Bar

In InDesign CC 2018 and some other Creative Cloud 2018 applications, the application name and version now appear in the Application Bar. That could make it easier to distinguish application windows. Unfortunately, this feature is more likely to be seen on a Mac, since Mac menus are part of the operating system UI and are displayed above the window. In Windows, the menus are on the Application Bar, and most Windows displays may not have the space to show the feature.

Stability and Speed

Many common sources of InDesign crashes have been fixed. Plus, Adobe’s internal tests show an average reduction in launch time in InDesign CC 2018 by 30% compared to CC 2017.

Bugs from Previous Versions Fixed

Over 20 bugs were fixed, including the following:

Bigger Fill and Stroke icons in the Swatches panel and Tools panel

InDesign CC 2017.1’s new “flat interface” made some fields (e.g., in Spell Checking) virtually invisible. These have been fixed.

Paragraph Shading color no longer changes in a document when opened in a new InDesign version.

Transformation values that appear near the cursor weretiny on a Retina display device and are now enlarged.

Problems with scrolling in the Glyphs panelhave been resolved.

The reference point widgets on the Control panel and Transform panel have been enlarged.

Opening InDesign CC 2018 Files in an Earlier VersionIn the InDesign CC 2014.2 update (January 2014), a feature was added which makes opening newer versions possible if you have a Creative Cloud subscription. If you have an earlier version of InDesign CC, CC 2014, CC 2015, or CC 2017, when you attempt to open an InDesign CC 2018 file, you’ll see a dialog box. It will tell you that the file needs to be converted to your version. It also warns that features in the newer version may be modified or omitted. All you have to do is click the Convert button, and the Creative Cloud will convert it.

A Good Year for InDesigners

InDesign CC 2018 includes a pleasing mix of major new features and minor enhancements that should gratify a large audience. In addition, it makes progress with greater stability and faster launch speed, and it fixes bugs introduced in earlier versions. I’m looking forward to using it!

Steve Werner

Steve Werner is a trainer, consultant, and co-author (with David Blatner and Christopher Smith) of InDesign for QuarkXPress Users and Moving to InDesign. He has worked in the graphic arts industry for more than 20 years and was the training manager for ten years at Rapid Lasergraphics. He has taught computer graphics classes since 1988.

I upgraded to 2018 today — and the font I use on all my web wire-fames and mockup files is still on my Mac, but InDesign can’t/won’t find it or read it. I’ve installed it in all the font folders — InDesign refuses to believe it’s there. It’s AppleCasual.dfont. Any recommendations? I’m in the middle of projects and have now lost hours last night and today trying to figure this out.

You’ll probably get a better response if you post this question in the forums, but you might also try the document fonts folder trick. Put a folder in the same folder your file is sitting in and call it Document Fonts. Put a copy of the font in there and restart the app/launch the doc. However, if the font is old, it can be corrupt…do you use fonts management software? That will usually alert you to a damaged or unusable font.

Thanks — I did go to the forums, but actually found better advice here. =-) The weird thing I finally figured out is that InDesign 2018 is calling the font “Casual” not “AppleCasual” (which is the actual name of the font file). It took a while to figure that out. PS still calls it “AppleCasual” — and I did use Font Book to validate that it was installed correctly and not corrupt. It’s been the strangest thing. Now I have a weird thing where all text boxes’ first paragraph is auto indenting. It’s not set at the paragraph, Tab, Object box, etc (I’ve checked every style sheet that exists in the document) and it happens in a new document too. No Line indents, No drop cap settings … ugh. lI have been an IND user since the very first edition when I switched from Quark, and for me this 2018 update has been the most frustrating (or else my memory is going bad). Thanks again! Pauline

A dfont is a Mac system font in which the contents are stored in the data fork instead of the resource fork. Open your copy in Font Book and see if it is corrupt. I’m not sure you should have multiple copies on your machine so check in Font Book to see how many there are on your machine. Font Book will offer to remove duplicates. Someone posted to the forum several weeks ago saying he had the same problem as you have when he moved a package containing a dfont to a Windows machine.

But my guess is that Erica’s suggestion that the dfont may be corrupt is the problem. Dfonts are not reliable and should not be used for professional work. I suggest finding an opentype version of that font.

Steve, You wrote above: ‘But InDesign CC 2018 adds the new Size and Position Options choice in the Object Styles dialog box … Note that the new options support not only independent objects like text or unassigned frames; they can also be applied to anchored objects, tables, and image frames.’

As far as I can tell, one can only apply an object style to, and record the size and position of, the text frame in which a table is placed (in line with a paragraph), not to the table itself. I was wondering what you meant when you wrote ‘can also be applied to anchored objects, tables, and image frames’. Am I missing something?

I’ve jumped from CS 5 circa 2014 to the CC2018 — and now my photos won’t resize. I see that I need to “Auto Fit” but I can’t seem to find that button. And do I have to “Auto Fit” each individual photo? This new system seems more complex for a such a simple task. Help!?

Hi Felipe,
I am new to EPUB reflowable and am experience angst with many aspects of this layout. But,the Endnotes conversions are one thing that are working very well for me. 2018 is converting my Footnotes to Endnotes at the end of each chapter without any hassles.

I’m not sure exactly how you are trying to create Endnotes for EPUB reflowable.
If you tick Endnotes in the ‘Text’ tab of the dialogue box (File>Export to EPUB, the process automatically converts your footnotes to Endnotes.

Let me explain better. Footnote feature works great and when I export with split document options checked, all footnotes from each chapter become endnotes in ePUB. This is a regular workflow

But for some projects I want to use split document options and get all notes (from all chapters) at the end of eBook. To manage it I need to start with the new feature – Endnotes in InDesign. As a result, in ePUB I don’t have the link between references and text notes at the end of ebook.

Try to combine the new feature Endnote (InDesign) with split options documents in export ePUB, that you will see this bug.

Thanks for the helpful intro. I have been using InDesign CC 2018 for several days and I have discovered a major issue that makes continued used of it a nonstarter for now. I work on pubs that contain several disparate stories that each have their own story-level (or story scope) endnotes. I found that saving a file that contains endnotes as IDML and then opening the IDML in InDesign CC 2017, causes all of the endnotes to disappear. The number references in the story are gone and the endnotes themselves are gone. There were a few other more manageable anomalies, too. In the same IDML created from InDesign 2018, several two-column text frames that are in a template I have been using without problems for years open in InDesign 2017 with 34 columns!! The moral of the story is, be vigilant and careful when you jump to a new version of InDesign. Crazy things can happen. Losing endnotes in a document saved to IDML is an unconscionable oversight on Adobe’s part. There should at least be a means to convert the InDesign 2018 endnotes to static text (while retaining the numbered endnote references in the story body). If there is a means, I have not discovered it. I need to be able to save to IDML for all sorts of reasons.

New functions have NEVER been backwards compatible with older versions. Your endnotes are still stored in the IDML, but the older version just cannot use them – how on earth could it? It doesn’t contain the actual *code* to deal with them! That said, if you need to have your document opened with older versions, with the live end notes converted to plain text, I suggest posting a request in the Scripting Forum. It doesn’t sound hard to script (but be aware that opening such a ‘flattened’ document again in CC 2018 won’t magically restore the live endnotes either). The column number thing sounds like a genuine bug, though. You might want to report that one to Adobe.

Hi [Jongware]… thanks for your reply. I totally get that older versions can’t handle new features. This is why I raise the red flag about the much-touted new endnotes feature. For people who deal with documents that have tons of story-level endnotes AND who need to exchange files with clients and colleagues who do not use 2018, the endnotes feature is basically useless. It forces you into 2018. As I said, it’s a nonstarter in these situations. And there are tons of great reasons for not upgrading to the latest and greatest. The other major problem with the new endnotes feature is that there does not seem to be a way in 2018 to place a document with old style, static endnotes from the get go. It would be great to have that as an option: either live, editable endnotes, or static, old style endnotes. So again, we would have to resort to relying on scripts for what is essentially a feature that was taken away from older version (i.e., static endnotes), or not upgrade to 2018 at all. I don’t claim that the endnotes thing is a bug. I just think it’s terrible software design. It’s a half-baked, problematic feature.

JunesJunes, another option is to report both situations as bugs to https://indesign.uservoice.com/, where other users can concur in comments, and upvote issues. The InDesign engineers pay very close attention to bug and feature reports here; you can see them asking clarification questions via comments in some of the posts.

looks like they forgot to include an option to search for an endnote reference marker, using find/replace. footnote refernce marker is available on both regular search and GREP search.
My guess is that there is actually an undocumented code for making this kind of search. if you know it – please post it here, thanks.

Search ^U. Another useful command: Keyboard Shortcuts …, Type > Go to Endnote Text. I don’t think it appears in the interface but, if one assigns a keyboard shortcut, when cursor is beside the ref. to an endnote, the command will shift the view to the associated endnote. Cmd-Shft-F jumps back. I found I had to open Keyboard Shortcuts several times before the command showed up with its proper label.

As Lindsey points out, you can assign a KBSC to the “Go to Endnote Text” command. It will not appear as a shortcut in the Type Menu, but it will appear as the shortcut in the Contextual Menu, where the command also resides. The nice part about assigning a KBSC to this command is that it acts as a toggle: if you’re at the endnote marker, it will take you to the (end of the) endnote text. If you’re in the endnote text, it will take you to the endnote marker in the main text.

No, you need to save CC 2018 back as IDML. Or, if you’re online, you’ll get an alert from Adobe the file you’re trying to open was created in a later version, and offering to convert it for you so you can open it. It works pretty well. (What happens is the file you’re trying to open gets sent to Adobe, where they have thousands of interns that take these files, convert them to IDML, and send it right back, all happens in a minute or two.) Just kidding about the interns. ;-)

How wonderful to finally be able to position photos in a long document with object styles using the new size and position options. The only issue I have so far is that the x and y won’t accept a negative number so I can’t automatically position a photo with bleeds. Does anyone have a possible solution to this? Am I missing something?

I am getting an error when trying to package a document that is saved to our server. Anyone else? InDesign tells me “Unable to package the document. InDesign cannot access:”{{filename.indd}}”.
When I pull the InDesign doc to my desktop I am able to package, then place the package back into the folder in the server.

I’ve reset my preferences, quadruple-checked all file names, fonts, etc. All is good, it’s like this new InDesign doesn’t want to play nice with the server I’m working from.

Robert-
If you choose to include Hyperlnks when you export to PDF, you can click on the endnote reference to go to the endnote text in the PDF. Then, in the endnote text, if you click on its number, you’ll be taken back to the endnote reference number in the main text.